ANKARA - Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said on Friday that fundamental rights and liberties were limited in Western countries due to security concerns while there was progress in Turkey.
Gul delivered a speech on the meeting of the advisory board of exhibition on human rights and development of non-governmental society in Turkey.
The exhibition would have an important role in improvement of human rights conscious in Turkey and contribute to implementation of reforms, Gul said.
Gul noted, ''making reforms is very important but their implementation is more important.''
The government was aware of that importance and therefore, closely followed implementation through Reform Monitoring Group, Gul stated.
Gul said that it would be seen in the following one month that many reforms were being implemented.
Foreign Minister Gul recalled that Prime Ministry Human Rights Directorate under his responsibility was organizing seminars in Anatolia to make people more conscious.
Gul stated that human rights and non-governmental society development exhibition had a special importance since it was a non-governmental project.
Pointing to importance of election of students as the target of the exhibition, Gul said that the exhibition would help evaluation of human rights and understand the price of delays in previous initiatives.
Gul said that human rights was a process of perfection and drew attention that when some problems were being overcome in that process, social and technological developments brought forth new problems.
Some Western societies were making the projection of an order in which prisons were closed but at the same time, they were trying to deal with problems which had re-occurred like illicit drug trafficking, racism, xenophobia, Gul noted.
Gul said that he wanted to draw attention to three sides of reform initiatives in Turkey.
''Some Western countries have started to limit fundamental rights and liberties due to security and terrorism. However, Turkey is successfully improving these rights and liberties under same conditions. There is a backward step in Europe and the United States and there is a limitation of fundamental rights and liberties in these countries while Turkey is recording progress in the same process,'' Gul said.
Gul noted that the government continued its reforms in parallel with efforts to overcome economic crisis and despite the negative effects of Iraq war.
''Some can think that it is a paradox that a government which gives priority to traditional and moral values is carrying out the reform campaign. However, there is not any contradiction,'' Gul added.
The project, carried out by History Foundation under auspices and scientific consultancy of Turkish Sciences Academy and with support of Human Rights Foundation, aims to increase consciousness of people in Turkey about human rights and widen definition of human rights.
Exhibitions will be opened and conferences will be held in 20 provinces within the framework of the project.
(BRC-AÖ) 31.10.2003